1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic simulated tennis games for use in the home or parlor, utilizing an illuminated electronic gameboard, a keyboard providing for player interaction, and a programmed memory, introducing elements of chance and skill, and implemented electronically by the use of digital logic circuits, a microcomputer system and light-emitting diode displays.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The game of tennis is difficult to simulate in parlor gameboard techniques and, therefore, there are few prior patents in this general area. A typical toy-type game is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,904,203, which utilizes a ball at the end of a pivoting arm. A simulated parlor-type tennis game is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,933,355. The game of this patent uses a gameboard having a scale diagram of a tennis court with appropriate positions marked thereon. It utilizes as a random selection means three die cubes. It uses three mechanical indicators for ball flight, ball bounce and player position. Lastly, it uses a serve and lob chart for indicating the results of the first serve, second serve and lobs responsive to various combinations of the three die cubes.
The most recent tennis board game known to the inventor is that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,007,937. This gameboard utilizes a scaled tennis court divided into a grid whose coordinates indicate player and ball position. Selective cards and tiles determine ball and player positions and markers are placed on the gameboard to indicate these positions. The parlor game of this patent is one of the most recent and most sophisticated of the non-electrical simulated tennis games.
In the field of electrical and electronic simulated tennis games, the most popular and best known are those employing a cathode ray tube or an adapter connected to a standard television receiver. These are numerous prior patents on these devices and on the subsystems used in these devices. An example is U.S. Pat. No. 3,778,058. The assignee of that patent is also the assignee in many related patents.
The simulated tennis games of the prior art have numerous disadvantages. The nonelectric gameboard, plus dice, plus chart or card-type games lack a sense of realism and action. The physical means are not available for anticipating and incorporating all those elements of skill and chance which make a real game of tennis hold the interest of the players. The video-type electronic games have managed to incorporate speed of reflex response, but often at the cost of sacrificing skill and strategy. Thus, they also lack the sense of realism. Video-type games also have certain other disadvantages. Those which rely upon a standard television receiver lack portability. They are fragile and require service. And the more sophisticated simulated games can be very expensive to manufacture and purchase.
The object of the simulated tennis game of the present invention is to incorporate the best features of both nonelectrical games and electrical games and to improve upon the prior art by incorporating more elements of skill, strategy and chance into a microcomputer-controlled electronic gameboard.